Shortly after the suicide of Internet entrepreneur and activist Aaron Swartz, Silicon Valley lawmaker Zoe Lofgren proposed “Aaron’s Law.” The bill aims to reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the law under which Swartz was prosecuted for mass-downloading academic documents from MIT’s network. Swartz’s family has blamed the government prosecution for contributing to his death. Lofgren submitted a draft of the bill to be reviewed on reddit. After its online critique, a revised version of the bill was published today, with more far-reaching reforms. The CFAA forbids “unauthorized access” to computer networks, and the older version of Lofgren’s reform bill would have simply changed the wording of the law so that nobody could be prosecuted under CFAA if all they had done is violate terms of service. Read 4 remaining paragraphs |